Parents must sacrifice Siamese twin

A British couple facing the heartache of separating their Siamese twins so that one of the babies can survive may find themselves battling the High Court for permission, a medical expert warned today.

Tina May, who is six months pregnant with the twins, and her fiance Dennis Smith are expecting to have to sacrifice one of the girls, who share a heart, to save the other.

They have already named the babies Natasha and Courtney, who will be born by Caesarean section at the end of April.

Ms May, 23, and Mr Smith, 33, from St Albans, Herts, then plan to go ahead with an operation to separate them at Great Ormond Street Hospital in central London.

But this could trigger a legal nightmare, according to Kypros Nicolaides, a professor of foetal medicine at King's College Hospital, London.

He said the court could even block the operation, planned for a month after the twins' birth to allow them time to gain strength.

Prof Nicolaides said the court could act in the wake of its previous involvement in the famous case of conjoined twins Gracie and Rosie Attard.

They made legal history when the High Court ruled

an operation to separate them should go ahead - despite the opposition of their parents because it was known Rosie would die.

The youngster did indeed die following the operation at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, but doctors said Gracie could lead a normal life.

But with the May twins, the parents must make the horrendous decision of which should live and which should die.

Miss May told the Sun newspaper: "This is the most horrific choice for any parent."

But Prof Nicolaides said: "The real problem here is the medical-legal nightmare arising from the involvement of the High Court in the case of the previous twins from Malta, the Attard twins, because in that case it was very clear that if the operation had not been carried out, both babies would have died."

He told BBC Breakfast News: "The baby that was sacrificed in that case essentially was half dead in as much as there was no heart and there was no brain development.

"In this case, both babies would be alive and, based on my understanding of the degree of sharing, the parents may be faced with the dreadful dilemma, one month after the birth of the babies, of truly sacrificing one.

"Both babies would be alive, the parents would bond with both.

"It may well be that the previous involvement of the High Court will produce the opposite effect because in this case it may well be that the High Court may apply the opposite logic that it may be illegal to separate them."

Doctors have told the couple, who also have a nine-month-old son, Damien, that the dominant twin Natasha has most of the heart and stands the best chance of survival.

The twins also share a liver which will have to be divided in the operation.

Conjoined twins occur in about one-in-100,000 pregnancies and only around 19 sets have been dealt with at British hospitals since 1984.